Semiconductor devices are used in a variety of electronic applications, such as personal computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic equipment. Semiconductor devices are typically fabricated by subsequently depositing insulating or dielectric layers, conductive layers, and semiconductive layers of material over a semiconductor substrate, and patterning the various material layers using lithography to form circuit components and elements thereon.
One important driver for increasing performance in a semiconductor device is the higher levels of integration of circuits. This is accomplished by miniaturizing or shrinking device sizes on a given chip. Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology has been developed in order to transfer finer patterns onto wafers. The EUV lithograph technology is considered a next-generation technology which will be used to fabricate a slimmer and faster microchip.
However, although the existing EUV lithograph technology has been generally adequate for its intended purpose, as device scaling-down continues, it has not been entirely satisfactory in all respects.